I was visting family in Hong Kong this past October and I had the opportunity to visit HKDL while I was there. Having experienced the park on October 12 first hand, I can say the article in question is absolutely accurate.
I am a Chinese-American born in San Francisco and both of my parents were born in China. Ever since I was young I was always taught to be proud of my race, however, my visit to HKDL made it very difficult to do so.
Although the park was far from full that day with little or no waits in line, many of the locals nevertheless felt compelled to take "cuts in line" as we call it, whenever the opportunity presented itself. Queuing up and waiting your turn meant absolutely nothing to these people. As I waited in the line for Winnie the Pooh, there was a chinese speaking man of about 30 years of age with 2 young children. In the 25 minutes that I waited in line for this ride, he made no less than 3 attempts to cut ahead of me with his children in tow everytime I allowed more than 12 inches of space between me and the party ahead of me. It was rude and annoying and abolutely not necessary.
This was just one example of many that I experienced that day.
To be clear, I have been to WDW over 25 times in the past 15 years. I was also raised going to Disneyland every summer as a youngster since the age of 8. In addition, as a flight attendant, I have visited Disneyland Paris as well as Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea over the past 5 years.
I am well aware of the annoying cigarette smoking that exists in DLP as well as in the Japan parks. I have also experienced the obnoxious South American Tour groups that overwhelm the Florida parks seasonally. I can even put up with the southern California locals who act like they own Disneyland, however, nothing in my experience can match the offensive quality of the behavior I experienced by this visit. It was terrible and that article from Japan is dead on.
I do not have an axe to grind with Disney, Hong Kong, China or the chinese people. I just thought you all would like to know. It's true and it's a much bigger problem then Disney or the local government would have you believe. Apparently China has a lot riding on this financially and they really need to make it work.
I suppose this park would be okay for the chinese as long as they were being rude to just each other, but as an American born and raised citizen, I can say this place is a shocker and not worth your time and anguish.
Wendell